Corby teacher named in top 50 in the world

Sam Wildman

A Brooke Weston computer science teacher has been included in the top 50 shortlist for the Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize 2017.

Ray Chambers, who was nominated for this award by an employee from Microsoft, entered teaching nine years ago by accident as the result of a last-minute Computer Science degree placement, but found that he loved it.

In 2015 he received the UK national teaching award for innovative use of technology, and in 2013/14 won the Microsoft Innovative Expert Educator award.

His computer science YouTube education channel has had more than 250,000 views.

Mr Chambers said: “I like to try new things in the classroom to get the students out of their seats and more engaged with my lessons.

“I think the more you change your teaching the more it keeps the students on their toes.

“I’m still in a daze that I have made it into the top 50.

“At the end of the day I’ve just been doing my job, it’s not like work and I just love the buzz I get from teaching and the reaction you get from students when they understand something is priceless.”

The top 50 teachers have been shortlisted from over 20,000 nominations and applications from 179 countries from around the world.

The shortlist has representatives from 37 countries and by highlighting their stories the Varkey Foundation hopes that the public will be able to join in passionate debates about the importance of teachers.

The top 50 shortlisted teachers have now been judged by a Prize Committee with the final ten candidates to be announced in February 2017.

The winner will then be chosen from ten finalists by a Global Teacher Prize Academy.

All 10 finalists will be invited to Dubai for the award ceremony at the Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF) on Sunday, March 19, 2017 where the winner will be announced live.